In this page, I’d like to give a deeper insight into the SLPOTY judging system, how it differs from other major photography competitions and why it is fair by comparison.
I’ve always been an admirer of photography competitions for the way they raise the profiles of photographers but I have never been a fan of the way they are judged. Specifically, that major photography competitions are still using the unfair and outdated “jury deliberation” method.
Jury deliberation is the formal system that is practiced in court trials where the members of the jury deliberate on objective points of law. In inherently subjective competitions however, such as dance, music and photography, a set of judges convene in the final stages to decide upon the winner. This type of judging has been shown to be unfair and prone to bias in numerous academic studies.
When the judges convene to deliberate the images, each judge states their opinion to the other judges, and when there is disagreement, it is the judge with the strongest ego that decides the outcome. This is usually the “authority” figure such as the head judge or a brand name photographer who convinces the other judges that their opinion is best and the remaining judges are influenced by their opinion. This is known as authority bias and conformity bias.
What is authority bias?
Authority bias is the tendency to believe the opinion of an “authority figure” and be influenced by that opinion – even it is wrong. It is sometimes more crudely referred to as unconscious brown nosing.
What is confirmation bias?
Conformity bias is the tendency to change your beliefs or behaviour to fit in with others.
The SLPOTY Judging pricess
In SLPOTY, in our efforts to reduce bias and be fair, we followed the evidence from respected studies and developed our own system of judging which is a blend of “triple blind” and “relative placement” methods.
What is triple blind judging?
Triple blind is the system used in medical trials and it works like this in the competition. When the judges view your images:
- they do not have any details about the image
- they do not know who the photographer is
- they do not convene as a group
This method fair and reliable.
What is relative placement scoring?
Relative placement is widely used in dance competitions where it has been shown to be the most fair, accurate, and reliable measure for determining the results of an inherently subjective competition. It works like this:
- Each judge has an equal vote and no judge’s score outweighs any other judge (i.e. no deciding judge with a casting vote).
- An odd number of judges are used to produce a majority result. This means no one judge can skew the results
- Average scores are not used because one judge can sway the result.
- Biased judges scores are removed. Biased scores are easy to identify. For example, in a 5 judge panel, where 4 judges award an image 1 point, and the other judge awards it 10 points, then this judge is biased. It is most likely that the judge has recognised the photographer who took the image.
The judging stages
Preliminary round:
- First viewing
- 7 day wait period
- Second viewing – yes/no vote
- Yes votes go through to next round.
- No votes – deleted
Secondary round
- Images viewed and given scores out of 10
- Highest scoring images go through to final round technical check.
- Lowest scoring images rejected but kept in reserve
Final round
- Request for RAW/Original files and checked for compliance with the rules.
- All images that comply win prize or commendation.
- Files that do not comply are eliminated